[1]: 158 As of 2023, articulations of the Global Security Initiative have primarily focused on broad principles and included little operational detail.
[5] The paramilitary PAP performs internal and - in wartime - rear-area security missions; it also controls the China Coast Guard.
[6] The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Military Commission (CMC) is responsible for creating PLA policy.
[7] Operational control of the PLA is administered by the CCP Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defense.
[citation needed] In 2005, China announced that it had downsized its military by 200,000 troops in order to optimize force structures and increase combat capabilities.
[10] The changes included eliminating layers in the command hierarchy, reducing non-combat units, such as schools and farms, and reprogramming officer duties.
According to Article 93 of the state constitution, the CMC directs the armed forces of the country and is composed of a chairman, vice chairmen, and members whose terms run concurrently with the National People's Congress.
China is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) along with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan.
The SCO was first called the Shanghai Five and was established in 1996 when the member nations signed agreements to strengthen mutual trust in military fields and border areas.
After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the entry of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces into Central Asia, the SCO was formed and members began to hold joint counterterrorism military exercises.
The naval exercise, which occurred in the East China Sea, was the first such drill with a foreign counterpart, as Chinese sources put it, "in a non-traditional security field".
As of that time, China had deployed 297 peacekeepers to five other nations, including East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Liberia, Afghanistan, and Kosovo.
China has also sent peacekeeping observers to Ethiopia and Eritrea, various Middle Eastern countries, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, and Western Sahara.
The report submitted in March 2006 at the Fourth Session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) contained a request for a budget increase to strengthen China's defensive capability and ability to respond to emergencies and to raise officer and enlisted pay levels.
The major ground forces equipment includes an estimated 7,000 main battle tanks, 1,200 light tanks, 5,000 armored personnel carriers, 14,000 pieces of towed artillery, 1,700 pieces of self-propelled artillery, 2,400 multiple rocket launchers, 7,700 air defense guns, 6,500 anti-tank guided weapons, and unspecified numbers of mortars, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, recoilless rifles, rocket launchers, and anti-tank guns.
The ministry is responsible for police operations and prisons and has dedicated departments for internal political, economic, and communications security.
China has developed an efficient, well-funded internal security apparatus which is tasked with stability maintenance, or "weiwen".
[15] Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region present China with its most significant terrorist threat, which emerged in the late 1980s.
Although they have not been publicly linked to violent activity, the separatists have engaged in violence, bomb attacks, assassinations, and street fighting,[citation needed] which Beijing responded to with police and military action.
Premier Wen Jiabao joined leaders of other Asian and European nations in Hanoi for the October 2004 Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM), where the delegates reaffirmed their call for a War on Terrorism led by the UN.
Since the major social movements in 2014 and 2019–20, the Central Government of China has had concerns about national security, and has highlighted foreign forces interfering in domestic affairs.